Does She Ever Get the Boy?
by effectively absent
Summary: A little piece from Hermione's POV, kind of angsty. When will it be Hermione's turn to be with Harry?


I was in an inspired mood last night and this is what became of it. I'm stuck on "Deliberate Deliberations," I can't get it to go anywhere. This is a bit angsty, I suppose. Unrequited H/Hr, though predictably, if the mood strikes me again, it will be "requited."  
  
-- jamie  
  
disclaimer.not mine.  
  
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Does she ever get the boy?  
  
That's not how it's supposed to work. In the movies, the boy pines after the popular girl and after an hour and a half of trials and tribulations, blunders and mishaps, in which the boy makes an ass of himself in front of said girl, the audience is left to wonder, "Does he ever get the girl?"  
  
That, unfortunately, is not how it works in MY life. In MY life, the boy always gets the girl. That girl just isn't me.  
  
When you're Harry Potter, you don't not get the girl.  
  
It's not that I blame Harry, he is, after all, "the boy who lived." He's also the boy with the most captivating green eyes and the endearingly unruly black hair. No girl in her right mind would turn down Harry Potter.  
  
It must be nice to even have the chance to turn him down. I wouldn't know. Seven years of friendship and not a single romantic gesture on his part.  
  
And trust me, I've made my share of mine.  
  
The morning of his birthday, whose owl always arrives first with a well thought-out and heartfelt gift? Who gets him soup from the kitchens after he catches cold at quidditch practice? When he fights with the flavor of the week, who talks him through it? When he mourns the loss of parents he never knew, who comforts him? Who always saves her mint chocolate chip Bertie's beans for him? Hell, who even knows that the mint chocolate chip beans are his favorite?  
  
Me. Not Cho Chang, not any of the ditzy Hufflepuff girls. Me.  
  
He doesn't even seem to have any idea what he does to me. I can't even look him in the face, let alone the eyes, for fear of revealing my adoration. My affection. My.love.  
  
He called me on this once.  
  
"You never look me in the eye," he said.  
  
"Sure I do."  
  
"No, really, you don't. I've seen you hold conversations with Ron and you look him right in the eye. You look at the professors straight on. You even seem to be able to keep eye contact with Malfoy. Why not me?"  
  
"I don't know, Harry, I'm sorry, I'll work on it."  
  
"Let's work on it now. Look me in the eye and talk to me."  
  
I tried. Oh, believe me, I tried, I just couldn't do it. I broke my gaze in less than two seconds. I couldn't risk exposure. He got angry.  
  
"What is so hideous about me that you can't even look at me?" he fumed.  
  
How wrong he was. In that two seconds, I think I drooled enough to fill the English Channel.  
  
Not that this is just about looks. It's not. My feelings for Harry run deeper than anything I could ever hope to articulate.  
  
In Muggle Studies, we briefly touched on the concept of Muggle psychology. We were taught that a lack of eye contact demonstrates a fear of intimacy. Harry wrote this down in his notes, nudged me, and underlined "fear of intimacy."  
  
I blushed and tried not to acknowledge him for the rest of class. Why did he do that?  
  
I've tried making him jealous. He doesn't appear to have noticed. There's a Ravenclaw quidditch player that I'm attracted to. I make a point of gawking at him when we see him in the dining hall. Harry just encourages me to pursue him.  
  
You daft git! I don't want him, I want you!  
  
Harry complains of girl trouble incessantly. The girl he's dating doesn't understand him. The girl he's dating can't maintain conversation. The girl he's dating only wants to snog (not that I can blame her). The girl he's dating insists on introducing him as "the Boy Who Lived." The girl he's dating is a COMPLETE AND TOTAL MORON.  
  
Sorry, I got a little carried away there. I simply can't stand to hear him lament his latest flame and her inadequacies while I stand by dutifully, living on only so much as a hug from him for months at a time.  
  
I don't want to give the wrong impression. It's not like I can't function or anything. I'm at the top of my class and was made a prefect for the third year in a row.  
  
With Harry.  
  
It always seems to come back to him, doesn't it?  
  
It hasn't always been like this. There was a time when I wasn't head-over- heels, fall-flat-on-your-face, in love with my best friend. I dated. I snogged. I thought about boys other than Harry Potter.  
  
This "thing" happened in such a way that I couldn't avoid it.  
  
We would just be sitting on the couch, watching Ron and Seamus play Exploding Snap and we would be close enough to be touching.  
  
I didn't think anything of it at first. It was normal, the couches in the common room weren't huge and it could be expected that we would brush up against one and other.  
  
We started to continue sitting like that long after the games had finished.  
  
It was nothing. I was reading into things. Harry and I were just enjoying each other's company. As friends.  
  
The sun had long set and then the fire would slowly die down and the light of the fading embers flickering on Harry's face was so mesmerizing that I would steal glances at him as often as I could.  
  
Eventually, one of us would come to our senses and realize how late it was, and we'd retire to our dorms for the night.  
  
I'd agonize in my bed over the predicament I found myself in. I wasn't falling for Harry, was I? That wasn't sensible. Hermione Granger did not do things that weren't sensible.  
  
Nonetheless, I found myself completely enamored with Harry. I thought about him every free moment. I relished those evenings on the couch. I let myself just feel and I tried not to overanalyze.  
  
Things would be going great, I'd think I was finally getting somewhere with him and then he'd come out with the news that he had a date for the weekend.  
  
I couldn't let my disappointment show. I'm the devoted, supporting, best friend. What was I going to do? Ask him not to go? I'd feel terrible if he agreed, if he spent the weekend with me in the library.  
  
I'd feel even worse if he denied me.  
  
That, right there, I think, is the source of all the problems. Fear of denial, rejection, whatever. We certainly wouldn't be able to go back to being friends after an unreciprocated declaration of love.  
  
I'd lose my best friend.  
  
In spite of this, I've almost slipped on several occasions. Those nights on the couch when I watch him have led to a few awkward moments. He'll catch me looking at him, I snap my head down, and I can see, out of the corner of my eye, him looking at me. And I get that warm coiling feeling in my stomach. The tingle you get right before something monumental happens. The nervous flutter of an impending first kiss. My eyes flicker shut of their own accord and I have to mentally shake myself to snap out of it. He couldn't possibly want to kiss me. That would just be too perfect.  
  
Nothing in my life is my perfect.  
  
And so here I am- always with Harry, but alone nevertheless. Alone, and left to ask the question:  
  
Does she ever get the boy?  
  
Well, that's the end, folks. Thanks for reading. Feel free to review. 


End file.
